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Author: Toju Ogbe

Nigeria and Indonesia trade investment has reached $3 billion, out of which $400 million worth of non-oil exports was transacted by the end of December, 2017.

According to the Director, Indonesia Trade Promotion Centre, Bagus Wicaksena, Nigeria non-oil exports to Indonesia had risen by 300 percent since the introduction of new policies on ease of doing business in Nigeria.

Wicaksena, who stated these during the unveiling of Indonesia-African forum, to be held in Bali between April 7 and 14, said Indonesia would continue to import more of Nigerian crude adding that there is potential of more trade relationship between his country and Nigeria.

He stated that Nigeria is Indonesia’s second biggest trading partner in Africa; coming after South Africa.

He noted that the inaugural edition of the forum is an Indonesian government’s initiative to further promote sustainable trade and investment relationship between it and sub-Saharan Africa

The Australian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Paul Lehmann, has stated that trade transactions between Australia and Nigeria in 2016 and 2017 were worth about AUD $343 million, approximately about ₦100 billion.

Mr. Paul Lehmann said:

“We estimate that Australia’s total two-way trade in goods and services with Nigeria was worth about AUD $343 million in 2016 and 2017, which is about ₦100 billion.

Many more Nigerians are choosing to study in Australia, which is becoming a key part of our trade relationship. A variety of Australian mining companies are also active in Nigeria.

As the Nigerian mining sector develops, I expect to see even more interest from Australian firms to help to grow the mining industry here, particularly in solid minerals.

I also see plenty of potential for trade and cooperation in our agricultural sectors, as well as different foods and beverages.’’

Mr. Lehmann commended the Nigerian Government’s effort at improving the country’s business and investment environment, adding that more Australian companies would want to do business in Nigeria when the environment becomes right.

According to him, beyond mining and agriculture, Australian firms have strong reputations in ICT, logistics and transport, health and financial services, among many other sectors.

Australia is a country and continent surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans. Its major cities – Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide – are coastal. Its capital, Canberra, is inland and its largest urban area is Sydney.

Australia officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands.

It is the largest country in Oceania and the world’s sixth-largest country by total area.

Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Nagabhushana Reddy, has disclosed that with improved levels of cooperation, Nigeria and India bilateral trade volume in 2017 was $9.4 billion.

In his words:

“India is now the largest trading partner of Nigeria globally and Nigeria is the largest trading partner of India in Africa with bilateral trade of 9.4 billion dollars last year.

Though, we are the largest purchaser of crude oil from Nigeria, there is room for improvement.

The trade balance is 80-20 where 80 percent is what we import from Nigeria and 20 percent we export which is essentially in pharmaceuticals, engineering equipment, automobile to some of the specialised products particularly in the power sector.

We also have some amount of fuel being sold here by Indian oil companies.”

Both countries have had existing relations in various areas including agriculture, defense, trade, capacity building, healthcare, infrastructure and socio-cultural relations.

India’s imports, however, declined significantly by 23 percent to 7.65 billion dollars during the period 2016 to 2017 as against 9.94 billion dollars registered during the period 2015 to 2016 due to the fall in crude oil prices in the international market.

The decline, however, did not affect India’s amount of oil imports from the country.

Furthermore, India’s exports to Nigeria declined from 2.22 billion dollars in 2015 to 2016 to 1.77 billion dollars in the period of 2016 to 2017 due to Nigeria’s internal security and economic recession.

The Indian high commissioner added that India was an emerging development partner of Nigeria with emphasis on sharing of knowledge and experience with a view to improve capacity building in diverse areas.

He reiterated that about 500 training programmes annually were offered under the India Technical and Economic Cooperation programme.

Furthermore, he reiterated the readiness and commitment of his government extend developmental assistance for projects of national importance to Nigeria.

“The bilateral trade is a very important mechanism to boost our economic relationship.

We do not have the total trade volume for the whole year, but for the total volume from January to November, bilateral trade stood at $12.3 bn.

That represents more than 30 percent of increase compared to the same period of 2016; we believe that by maintaining our normal trade volume, our overall economic relation and cooperation will be boosted and give impetus to our overall relationship.

Nigeria is the biggest Chinese investment destination in Africa, the second largest export market and the third largest trading partner of China in Africa.”

Nigeria and China established formal diplomatic relations in February 1971.

The envoy, however, said both countries, in 2005, established strategic partnerships to promote relations in several areas and enhance continued people-to-people exchanges.

He said such strategic partnership was fostered as a result of Nigeria’s importance to China.

Agreements by both countries following the strategic partnership paved way for Chinese investment and development opportunities in Nigeria.

Lin reiterated the Chinese Government’s commitment to exhaust its efforts to promote development programmes in Nigeria.

Mr. Lin further stated:

“There is also a concept initiated by my ambassador called made in Nigeria with China.

I think this is a very good concept; there are many private investors in China, they have the expertise, experience and surplus industrial capacity.

They need to find the market. All these conditions we will make use of to see whether we can try something successful here.

We have friends in Africa and we want to further cement our friendship and we believe that by supporting each other we are going to have bigger win-win scenario.”